The purpose of this thesis is to explore how categorisation of marginalised groups is done on Swedish Wikipedia. Taking its starting point in social constructionism and critical knowledge organisation research, classic knowledge organization is seen as inherently flawed. In its quest for universal knowledge organisation systems, the fact that knowledge is contingent (emerging and constructed), is obscured. This runs the risk of marginalising marginalised groups further. Instead it is claimed that knowledge organization systems ought to strive for transparency by inviting its users to witness and take part in the knowledge process. A discourse analysis was made on two source materials: an interview study with three editors of Swedish Wikipedia and openly available discussion threads from Swedish Wikipedia. The result of the discourse analysis shows that the wider to write at Wikipedia discourse contains two nodal points: neutrality and consensus. The neutrality nodal point is a floating signifier in the sense that two different discourses try to give it two different meanings. In one of the discourses neutrality is seen as possible to achieve when describing reality. Categorisation is uncomplicated, it is simply a case of reflecting the categories that already exist ”out there”. In another discourse neutrality is seen as something impossible to achieve when describing reality because it is ever-changing and many-faceted. Categorisation is hard and complicated. Between these two discourses there is a discursive struggle which is mitigated by the nodal point consensus. Through discussions leading to consensus a ”neutral enough” way of describing the world is achieved. Categorisation on Wikipedia can thus be seen to achieve the transparency that critical knowledge organization research requests: the categories are results of discussions that all reading users can access. But there is doubt as to how many of the reading users of Wikipedia actually find and read the discussion pages. If there are only a few who ever finds the discussions, the transparency remains low and the constructed nature of Wikipedias knowledge organization system remains obscured. This is a two years Master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-352642 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Jonsson Sandström, Karin |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för ABM |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Uppsatser inom biblioteks- & informationsvetenskap, 1650-4267 ; 744 |
Page generated in 0.0025 seconds